Thousands of pot plants found in Polk County

Police brought in inmates from the local Polk County jail, Monday, to clear fields of marijuana plants discovered by chance by a deer hunter near Goodrich.

Photo By You/TubePolk County Today

More than 70 officials with inmates from the local county jail worked Monday to try and clear thousands of marijuana plants from 13 fields found near Goodrich. A deer hunter stumbled across the growers camp and irrigation systems Saturday.

Photo By You/TubePolk County Today

More than 70 officials with inmates from the local county jail worked Monday to try and clear thousands of marijuana plants from 13 fields found near Goodrich. A deer hunter stumbled across the growers camp and irrigation systems Saturday.

Photo By You/TubePolk County Today

More than 70 officials with inmates from the local county jail worked Monday to try and clear thousands of marijuana plants from 13 fields found near Goodrich. A deer hunter stumbled across the growers camp and irrigation systems Saturday.

Photo By You/TubePolk County Today

More than 70 officials with inmates from the local county jail worked Monday to try and clear thousands of marijuana plants from 13 fields found near Goodrich. A deer hunter stumbled across the growers camp and irrigation systems Saturday.

A man was under arrest and another on the run Monday as authorities cleared more than a dozen marijuana fields complete with a sophisticated irrigation system in Polk County, according to various reports.

A deer hunter on Saturday stumbled across the fields off Old Highway 35 near Goodrich, about 70 miles north of Houston. More than 40,000 marijuana plants have been recovered so far, with many more still to go, Chief Deputy Bryan Lyons from Polk County Sheriff's Office told Polk County Today.

The Montgomery County Police Reporter said teams from several area agencies were pulling up the plants and hauling them away in trailers. Lyons said 72 officials were on-site.

David Johnson, a game warden with Texas Parks and Wildlife, said he had heard there had been arrest in the area but didn't have any details. KTRK reported one person was arrested and another is being sought.

Authorities said they are seeing more and more cases like this within the U.S. with dealers deciding it is easier to grow plants here rather than try to bring them over the border.

Johnson said he got a call Sunday night asking him to help with the effort to uproot thousands of marijuana plants from about a dozen growing sites.

"It's a very time-consuming and labor-intensive process," Johnson said Monday. "You just have to pull every one of them up."

Inmates from the Polk County Jail were drafted on Monday to work pulling up the plants.

Helicopters guided the searchers into the general area where the marijuana fields were located. They also followed trails through the undergrowth that were left by the growers as they made their way from site to site.

Johnson was struck at the sophistication of the operation. There were water hoses for irrigation, power generators and living areas set up at the site.

"It's not just a bunch of hippies out there growing them a few pot plants," he said.

The area is owned by timber companies that lease it out to hunters.

When deputies arrived on Saturday, evidence showed the growers had just left, Lyons said.

"There were some items that led us to believe that they left not long before we made it here," Lyons told Polk County Today. "There were a couple of campsites that we found that we will be fingerprinting and trying to get some identifications on subjects that may've been here."

Photos from the scene show plants hidden among thick woodland. Deputies say they suspect they are dealing with people from outside the area.

"It's pretty obvious that they are not going to be residents of Polk County - they were living out here on this site. These were pretty elaborate campsites," Lyons told Polk County Today.